How Dior and Chanel Are Winning Back Aspirational Shoppers

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Feb 18, 2026

Joan Kennedy, Retail correspondent at Business of Fashion who tracks luxury pricing and strategy, breaks down how Dior and Chanel are adjusting after steep post-pandemic hikes. She discusses their shift toward smaller leather goods and playful low-price items. The conversation covers merchandising tactics, storytelling and whether creative leadership can reignite desire among aspirational shoppers.

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ADVICE

Reintroduce Accessible Entry Products

Rebuild lower‑priced assortments focusing on small leather goods and accessories under €4,000.
Introduce simpler lower‑priced handbags to restore accessible entry points into the brand.

INSIGHT

Concrete Shift Toward Lower Price Tiers

Dior increased the share of leather goods below €4,000 from 69% (2023) to 87% today, while Chanel moved from 4% to 30%.
That signals a material shift in where these houses place accessible inventory.

ADVICE

Use Whimsical Items To Re‑Engage Shoppers

Use low‑ticket playful items (charms, headbands, wallets) to lure customers and create strong in‑store psychology.
Make these items creative and visible to signal freshness and value.

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After raising prices aggressively during the post-pandemic boom, luxury brands are now confronting slower growth and a shrinking aspirational customer base. According to Bernstein, average luxury price hikes reached 36 percent between 2020 and 2023, with Dior and Chanel raising prices by 51 percent and 59 percent, respectively. Now, as Bain estimates that more than 50 million aspirational shoppers have left the category, both houses are adjusting their pricing architecture and product mix in an attempt to rebuild volume without sacrificing exclusivity.

BoF reporter Joan Kennedy joins The Debrief to unpack how Dior and Chanel are recalibrating pricing and product strategy to win back aspirational shoppers.

Key Insights:

Dior and Chanel are among the brands that leaned hardest into post-pandemic price increases, prioritising margin expansion and high-net-worth clients. That strategy helped fuel growth at the time, but it has also intensified the industry’s current reckoning. “Pricing has really emerged as this key concern,” Kennedy says. “At Dior and Chanel, prices rose 51 per cent and 59 per cent, respectively.” Products that once served as entry points are increasingly out of reach for aspirational shoppers: “The Chanel medium flap has nearly doubled in price since 2019,” she says.

To pull aspirational shoppers back into stores, Dior and Chanel are rebuilding the lower end of their offer – from small leather goods and accessories to playful add-ons. As Kennedy puts it, “brands have been introducing these fun little whimsical items at the bottom, which have a good psychological effect on all shoppers.” And even when the ticket doesn’t shift, brands are trying to make the value proposition feel stronger through newness and storytelling: “maybe the price isn't changing, but it’s trying to hammer home that there's a little bit more value … and really ride the momentum brought by these new creative directors.”

Even if excitement around creative directors Jonathan Anderson and Matthieu Blazy reignites interest, the economic backdrop may limit how far that enthusiasm translates into sales. “It’s definitely a big open-ended question – how much of this is a problem with desire versus ability to purchase?” Kennedy says. “Maybe a lot of these shoppers do want these products and are really excited by them, but just don’t have the ability.” In that sense, the reset is only partially in luxury’s control. Products can restore aspiration, but macro conditions ultimately determine movement.

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